


I Can't Go Now

by faultyfriendofyours



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: M/M, McLennon, One Shot, hurt john lennon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22326691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faultyfriendofyours/pseuds/faultyfriendofyours
Summary: It was an accident, really. A lesson to be learned: Not all drug dealers are to be trusted.
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

There was no one with him.

John wanted to have an experience alone. Someone had told him that it’s better. That, alone, you feel one with the universe and that its secrets will be revealed in a grand gesture. And with it, you will be set free of mind and soul. That was what he wanted: To feel absolutely free of this world and all the things that have haunted and tormented him since he could bother to recall. Even if it all only lasted an hour or less, it would be worth it.

LSD had been the wonder drug that helped him achieve something like this in the past but it wasn’t enough. So, why not try something so familiar to him but just in a different way? The drug had been good to him for the past few years when he wanted an extra bit of fun at parties or with friends.

Now, alone in his house,- no Julian, no Cynthia, no Paul- he placed two tablets on his tongue. The man he got them off had said he was an old friend of George’s. Had promised him that taking two was the best way to experience the high. John didn’t question it. He had recollections of his drunken self taking three tablets before and he was fine after.

With an ease of mind and excitement for what was to come, he leaned back onto the couch and stared up at the ceiling, the little tablets dissolving on his tongue with a sharp and bitter taste. His brows furrowed at the repugnant taste.

Acid had never had a taste anytime he’d taken it and now this overpowering bitterness filled his mouth. He swallowed down the tablets before they could dissolve further and immediately regretted it as it burned all the way down his throat. It was a strange sensation, followed by the familiar tingling of his tongue. At least that was normal. But that taste, - awful, sour, and burning- what had that been?

The longer he sat and stared at the ceiling, the more his thoughts raced around his head. His mind began to buzz with what if’s that just wouldn’t leave him alone.

What if that wasn’t acid? What if it was laced? What if he took too much? What if he dies? What if he’s alone when he dies?

He couldn’t fathom dying alone at 24. That’s not what’s supposed to happen. You aren’t supposed to go out like that. But since when did the world care about what was fair and right and just?

As the seconds passed, his heartbeat rose to a gallop in his throat. His hands tingled and his breaths heaved in and out. His legs curled up close to his chest but it wasn’t close enough. He didn’t feel safe enough. Wrapping his arms around his shins, he pulled them in tight, his chest pressing hard against his thighs as he struggled to breathe right.

Tears streamed down his face as the room began to tilt and turn before his eyes. He let out a whimper and shut his eyes tightly, burying his head into his knees. Even shutting off his sight didn’t help. The room was still moving beneath him as his hot breaths were recycled in the tight cocoon he’d formed.

“H-help…” His head whipped up, eyes wide open, to find the blurry room was empty. “I can’t… I can’t. Help,” he screamed it at the top of his lungs, the sound heart-wrenching. But there was no one else to hear it. “I can’t- can’t die- die…” his words echoed in his ears, reverberating with a sinister distortion.

He fell from his couch, crawling on the floor as it moved beneath him like jello. The world swayed and danced around him, taunting him with bright and happy colors. He knew he would never be as happy as the colors when he was dead.

He groped at the side table, pulling himself up on untrustworthy legs. His hands were moving of their own accord on the rotary phone, as his eyes couldn’t clear enough to read the numbers. The lamp and phone had turned into something out of a Dalí painting but his appendages seemed to comprehend what his eyes couldn’t.

“Didn’t plan to tell me you weren’t coming ‘round? You knew Brian wanted us all here.” The voice. The voice he didn’t know he needed to hear. It was sweet and palpable on his tongue, so unlike the bitter pills that would surely kill him.

“Paulie,” his voice came out in a low cry as he crashed to the ground, his knees giving out. He held tight to the side table, rattling it with his attempt to stand again. The lamp that sat by the phone crashed and shattered on the floor beside John. The noise muffled in his ears, riding below the concerned yells of his mate.

“John? John! What’s the matter?” The sweet voice was dashed with salt.

“Come help me.” His voice caught in his throat. “I don’t… Paul. I can’t… can’t die alone.” The words choked out, mangled and raw.

“What happened? Tell me, did you take…” Paul’s words were slow and morphed and his voice didn’t sound like his voice at all until it was just noise. A blaring ring of noise.

In an instant, the noise was completely cut from John’s hearing. All noise was, now that he really listened. The receiver dropped from between his fingers. He watched it slam against the wooden leg of the table but no sound came from it. Sitting on his floor, stupefied by the deafness, his hand went to the pile of broken porcelain on the ground. He ran his open palm against it and failed to hear it’s gentle clink against one another.

He tried to speak and heard nothing. He let out his loudest scream and heard nothing. His curiosity flipped back to panic. He’d made himself deaf from drugs. He’d never hear music again. Hear his child again. Hear Paul again. His life was over if he lived at all.

The room had gone dark with blacks and deep reds running down the walls. Running down his hand? His face? His face was warm and melting and leaving and coming. Red hands went to his melting face and came away with more red. It melted his fingers like candles.

He was deaf and painted in black and red and melting into the floor.

His mouth hung open as he tried to force the sound out. Nothing and everything. He felt the vibrations in the air but nothing touched his ears.

Then it all came pouring in. Colors and sound assaulted him in an instant and his entire body trembled. No. Not trembled. His body shook. Shook violently as something unpleasant rose in the back of his throat- foam? Bitter, burning, foam. The pills were clawing their way up his throat like demons crawling from the depths of hell. He saw everything and then nothing. His eyes forced themselves up and away until there was only darkness. “Johnny!…Johnny…Johnny…”

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, when I call you Johnny boy… Paul’s voice danced in his ears. You’re all I want, you’re all I want…

Paul was left with too many questions and not enough time to process anything. He’d handed the phone off to George, with strict instructions to call an ambulance if John didn’t respond within the next five minutes.

Now, he barreled down the roads at a speed that was far above legal, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t see an ambulance when he arrived. His heart pounded against his chest as he whipped the car around the corner. John’s house was in view and no emergency lights blinked from any cars. There were no sirens to be heard.

A weight lifted off his chest, a deep breath escaping his lips. He slowed his speed to park nearby. He’d probably had a bad trip and George talked him through it. That’s all. He’d go in and see him through the rest of his high and that would be that.

That just couldn’t hold true, though. He wasn’t lucky enough. The noise came faintly at first, just as Paul put the car in park. The wailing of sirens. His heart dropped before bouncing straight back into his throat. He’d only made it here first.

Paul dashed to the door and tried to yank it open but it was locked. Cursing, he frantically searched his pockets and pulled out his key. His hands almost shook too much to undo the lock but he managed, slamming the door open. The living room was dark, the late day sun seeping in to light the room in deep oranges and purples. A scratching and gurgling sound was coming from somewhere nearby, drowned out by the ringing of a phone and the approaching sirens.

“Johnny!” Paul’s eyes scanned the room as he walked around the large couch. “John, it’s Paul, mate!” Paul’s breath caught in his throat as he saw shaking feet peeking out from behind a side table. “John!” He raced across the floor, sliding to John’s side.

He was on his back, foam bubbling from his mouth and mixing with blood that flowed freely from a cut on his forehead. Paul lifted his best friend to his side so the foamy vomit would clear from his airways. John was still shaking and jerking on the floor of broken porcelain and blood. The remnants of a lamp were pushed into a nearby corner of the room.

“Come on, Johnny. Come ‘round.” He spoke softly, patting John’s back. John went stock still then limp against Paul’s hands. “Johnny?”

The flow of sick from his mouth had stopped. Paul reached up onto the couch and pulled off a blanket, still supporting John with his other hand. He wiped away the sick from John’s lips before putting his ear up close to them. No breath sounds came. “No..no…”

“Move back, son.” Two hands grabbed his shoulder, yanking him backward. He hadn’t even heard them come in but now the two paramedics were in front of him.

The paramedics moved around John, hiding him from Paul’s view. “He’s not breathing! You have to help him, please!”

They didn’t respond, only talked amongst themselves, moving John around. One man began compressions on his chest. Paul winched at the thought of John being hurt even more by the shards of porcelain beneath him. It won’t matter if he’s dead.

The thought shook Paul to his core. John… dead. It seemed impossible and completely reasonable at the same time. Neither man was a stranger to losing someone too soon and too important to them. What would he do if these two men couldn’t get him back? Get back his best friend. His partner. His world.

Paul’s eyes stung as he watched the man push into John’s chest. He forced the tears back, steeling himself to any emotions. He had to keep his head.

“What did he take?” The parametric turned back to him as the other rushed from the house.

“Maybe LSD. But… I don’t know. He didn’t say.” He’d never seen an LSD overdose. He didn’t know if it was possible but figured it might be.

The man turned back to John, pushing down into his chest, breathing air into his mouth through a plastic mouth cover. Paul stared intently, silently pleading to the universe to give his Johnny back.

Someone must have been listening. John lurched forward with an inhuman gasp before falling back again. Paul darted forward, his hands stinging against pieces of porcelain as he maneuvered around the paramedic.

“Give him room, sir.”

Paul didn’t care to listen. He pulled John into his lap, ducking his head down low. John’s breath warmed his cheek and he could have cried. “Johnny, darling,” he looked over the lad cradled in his arms. His eyelids twitched but refused to open, an impossible frown dragging down the corners of his lips. “Can you wake up for me, love?”

“You… I’m… Dead?” The words fumbled from John’s lips.

“No, darling. You’re very alive.”

“I can’t… You can’t… can’t leave me…”

“I’m not. Swear it.”

“Sir, we need to take him to the hospital. Please, let us put him on the stretcher.”

His eyes didn’t leave John but he let up on his grip and the paramedic untangled the two with great ease. Paul was left alone on the floor, frozen in place for a moment before his senses pulled together.

He hurried from the house and down the steps as they were placing John inside the ambulance. “Could I ride with you? I can’t just leave him like this.”

The younger of the paramedics was getting John’s stretcher secured for the ride. He looked up, looked over the disheveled Paul and gave a speculative frown.

“Won’t even dream of getting in your way, sir. He’s my best friend since childhood.” Paul’s voice cracked and he swallowed back a wave of emotion. “Can’t just leave him. He hates hospitals… Please.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as he adjusted the stretcher. It rocked a bit and John softly called out, “Paulie…”

The paramedic sighed, something calculative behind his eyes, “Right then. Don’t be in the way.”

The ride was so quiet. He held John’s hand tightly in his own as the paramedic worked on the other side, clearing the head wound of excess blood and checking the extensive cuts on his other hand.

After a moment, the man sat opposite Paul, watching John’s chest move and checking his pulse in intervals. He gave quiet grunts each time as if noting something in his head. Paul didn’t care to ask what that might be, his watch keenly placed on John’s injured face. The cut across his forehead was intense and already bleeding through the white bandage.

Without all the bandaging and blood, Paul thought, he’d have looked peaceful.

“There isn’t enough…” John’s lips barely moved to let the whispered words escape. “No… No… never enough…”

“John?”

The lad’s eyes burst open as they did in the house. But now Paul saw terror and panic painted across them. “No! I can’t! Not yet! Not yet!” John thrashed about, as Paul and the paramedic held him down.

“Calm your mate or I’ll be forced to use a sedative,” The man said through gritted teeth.

“Johnny, I’m right here. I’m right with you.” He tried to push back John’s hair as his head thrashed about. “Look at me. Look at me, love!”

Panting and frantic, John’s eyes locked onto Paul. “I can’t die. I can’t. Not yet. Not yet!” He thrashed around again, shutting his eyes tightly.

Paul grabbed his mates chin, forcing his head to stay still. “You are not dying, lad!”

John’s eyes opened ever so slowly, his limbs settling in the stretcher. He gazed at Paul with huge pupils, his breaths settling into a rhythm closer to normal.

“You’re alive. Can’t you feel- feel me?”

John’s eyes moved to the hand holding his face. He could indeed feel the firm grip of Paul’s fingers loosen against his skin and drop to his shoulder. He could feel the pain aching throughout his body. He grabbed Paul’s arm with a death grip, every bit of anxiety in it, and Paul made no complaint. “I feel you.” He fell back onto the stretcher, slipping his hand down Paul’s arm until their hands interlocked. “Thank Christ.”

He wasn’t dead. He had more time. Fucking Christ. The thought of it all ending. He was convinced it was all over but here he was, holding his mates hand in his, feeling every bit of pain he had caused himself ache through his body.


	2. Chapter 2

It took quite some time but something nearing calm had finally settled in the small hospital room. The drugs seemed to have worn almost completely away and the doctor and nurses had stopped coming in as frequently. All that was left for Paul to do was sit and watch over his dozing friend with a guitar in his lap. George had left it after his and Ringo's visit and Paul was glad for it. He needed something to do with his anxious hands as he waited for John to wake once again.

Low light from the nightstand lit the fretboard as his fingers traveled across the shining strings, doodling with a tune he’d been working on. It was going nowhere, though. The smell of antiseptic and just _hospital_ laid too thick in the air, not allowing him to really get lost in the music. Then there was also the worry keeping his head fogged too. John had passed out in the ambulance and not woken since. Though every nurse had told Paul that this was normal, he couldn’t help but worry. His eyes never failed to linger up to John every minute or so only to find him still sleeping soundly.

As the night wore on and exhaustion took hold, Paul was finally lost in his lazy strumming. Heavy lidded eyes watched slow fingers move from chord to chord, skipping anything that required too much acrobatics from his fingers. It sounded like shit but it was at least something to do.

“Your granny music putting you to sleep, son?”

Paul pulled on a smirk and lifted his head to find the groggy Lennon raised up in bed, legs crossed under the heavy blankets. “Aye. Guess so.”

“Why ‘aven’t you gone home, then,” his question came through a dry throat.

Paul scoffed as he sat George’s guitar to the side. “Because,” he paused to pull his chair right up next to John’s bedside. “You scared the fuck out of me, ya’ git.” John didn’t answer, only humming with crossed arms. “Cyn just left, y’know. Had to practically force her out to take little Jules to bed.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up for a split second before falling once again.

“You gonna speak beyond slagging off my music?”

John stayed quiet for a moment then looked to the pitcher of water and back to Paul. Wordlessly, the bassist got up and poured a glass. He stole a sip for himself before handing it off to John who made an indigent huff before necking back the glass. A trickle of water escaped and traveled down his jaw. After the drink had vanished, he wiped his face clear of the water and cast his head down.

“So,” John tapped on the glass that now rested between his crossed legs. “Was the guitar out of tune or have I gone and fucked my hearing.”

Paul’s expression morphed into one of amused disbelief as he slowly blinked. “Well, guess that’s my question answered.”

“Paul, really,” John suddenly looked up, his eyes pleading and his grip on the glass turning his fingertips white. “It’s out of tune- the guitar-, yeah?”

The sudden shift in tone had Paul concerned. Was this an after effect of the drugs? Was he still a bit high from them? “Maybe I should call in a nurse.”

“Just fucking-!” John quickly corrected his tone as Paul froze on the spot. “...Just tell me, _please_.”

With his amusement long gone, Paul tentatively grabbed the guitar. He honestly had no clue if the thing was in tune. His mind had blissed-out hours ago. “Alright.” Clearing his throat, he shifted in his seat. “We’ll go through each string, eh?” With a minuscule nod from John, Paul plucked an open E and looked to John.

“That’s in tune, right?”

Paul hummed a yes and moved down to A. It was horribly out of tune, leaving Paul to wonder how he hadn’t noticed. But he kept a poker face and waited for John.

“Oh, that’s bloody awful, ain’t it?”

“Right again.” He started to tune the string correctly out of pure instinct, putting the instrument up to his ear. “Why does it matter so much,” He questioned once the string rang true.

“What about the next one- D-? It’s out, right?”

Paul huffed, shoving the guitar back into his lap. “What is this? What are you playing at?”

“Ain’t playing at anything, Macca. You said we’d go through the strings.”

“Aye. I’ll play the next when I’ve got a straight answer.”

John looked about to pull his hair out but only let his face fall into his hands, trying to ignore the pain in his banged hand. “When I was on- was tripping- I lost my hearing. I thought...- look!” He pulled his face from his hands to reveal teary eyes. “Just play the damn thing.”

Get all the answers he needed from that, Paul kept on down the line. With each correct answer, John became more relaxed. By the last string, he was laid back in bed, pleased with his perfect hearing. Three of the six strings had been out of tune and put back to place so that Paul could now strum a perfectly sound guitar. He went back to his earlier doodling with some more effort put to it.

“That ones good, that. Play it over,” John mused and Paul happily complied. “Go like,” John whistled a tune for his mate to copy.

With a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, Paul played back the whistled tune. As he added his own part, John’s eyes drifted closed. He whistled another line and Paul played it too. They went back and forth until Paul liked what he heard. He played the song all the way through and looked to John for a sign of approval but the lad's face was placid. Thinking he might have drifted back to sleep, Paul put the guitar to the side and curled up on the little chair awkwardly. Finding it too uncomfortable, he simply draped his upper body onto John’s bed and placed his hand over John’s uninjured one.

“Paul?” John’s voice was already full of sleep.

“Yeah, love?”

“Thanks for staying with me.”


End file.
